


Of Roosters And Men

by lithiumAlchemist



Series: Two Idiots At Homoville, N69, TX [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Awkward Results of Edibles, Comedy, Discussions of Gender/Body Dissatisfaction, Eventual Happy Ending (if you read the other one), Gay Jake English, Gender Non-conforming Jake English, Hurt/Comfort, Illustrated (homestuck-typical image edits), Italicized Oh Moment, Lengthy Descriptions of Tripping, M/M, Missing Scenes, Nonbinary Jake English, Oversharing, Recreative drug use, Trans Characters, Trans Dirk Strider, Trans Porn by Trans People, and they were roomates, companion fic, mood shifts, recommend reading the first fic if this interests you to not be lost its a short read
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:28:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27611384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lithiumAlchemist/pseuds/lithiumAlchemist
Summary: Dirk's lovely oddball roommate (for whom he's harbored the most Reddit-infamous crush of the decade, in a post that has gone viral after a fateful event) suggests they make a few edibles for quick cash. But of course, someone has to try those, and who better than the cooks themselves? Hilarity, gender, horror, and 11.1k Upvotes ensue.(Or: And They Were Roommates, except neither knows how much weed goes into an edible and both are horrible, terrible, no good gay dumbasses. Events are set prior to the first fic, contextualizing Jake's behavior)
Relationships: Jake English/Dirk Strider
Series: Two Idiots At Homoville, N69, TX [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2018417
Comments: 6
Kudos: 59





	Of Roosters And Men

**Author's Note:**

> Happy transgender awareness week!  
> Siiiiiiick of seeing stupid transphobic shit on the trans hs tags :^) Eat my whole fist. But also, enjoy.

**0**

What follows is a faithful account of kushed up events that were swiftly purged from Sober Dirk's permanent memory database. He might’ve _subconsciously_ done it to himself. Bear in mind, due to the nature of the trip, some parts had to be cut out to save you from witnessing the boring bits. Such as: the ten odd minutes he wasted gaping at the wallpaper and giggling like a deranged maniac.

(Nobody needs to hear all of it.)

**1**

Dirk did not care to remember how they ended up sprawled on the floor of Jake's room, looking at piles of dumb comics and sorting through snacks, but it was hot. 

Like, weather wise.

The world was hot and fuzzy around the edges, playing out like a vaporwave dream interspersed with television static. The test batch of edibles they made earlier that morning turned out just fine. More than fine! They were fatty, chocolatey things, and Jake carefully explained they _really_ should only eat half of a portion of the stuff when trying it, then maybe more later as a complement. To stay in the professional lane. If Jake was supposed to sell the brownies to his homies he had to vouch for the quality, but wasting the product was absolutely out of question.

Dirk snacked on his share with gusto (It tasted surprisingly decent for something he personally had a hand in baking) then forgot about it for an hour. Two hours in, Jake insisted on watching sitcom reruns to ease their brains with something familiar and calming. Well, not 'their' brains, it was all for _Dirk's_ brain, whom he worried was still far too preoccupied with the taboo of ingesting cannabis and breaking his perfect, lifelong, straight edge sober streak to have any sort of good high. Jake was right to worry about that, by the way. 

Around the two and a half hour mark he began to float to places. His arms and legs were numb and heavy, and moving them felt like being a spirit pulling the strings of a large meat puppet, experiencing the lag between thought and action. It was sort of… funny? In a curious way. Just being a silly floaty spirit, with nothing else to do or worry about, tugging at his gangly felt limbs stuck to imaginary wires. He could've wasted hours doing that.

His mood only grew increasingly more euphoric with time, as if to make up for the split in reality he was currently experiencing. His thoughts went by so fast and his body got around soooo sloooooow. Words lolled out of his tongue funny. He was suddenly the funniest guy on planet earth. He was the MOST _hilarious-est_ guy on planet mcfuckin' earth. Ain't nobody ever string words with the dexterity of his artisan's touch before. Jake's dumbfounded face laying slack in response to his genius quips was nothing short of priceless, too. Not to talk about how his nook of the sofa seemed to be sucking him into the seat for a full body hug. He didn't know the texture could feel like that. Or that the sitting experience could be interactive. Dirk didn’t know existence could look so clear crystal and yet so, so fucking complex in the same fraction of a second. He swore he was mere seconds away from developing a fully blasted third eye. He had already tapped into having a spider-sense.

Which brings us back to the comics, though.

Dirk chewed on a half-empty pack of regular jelly gummies as Jake tried to explain the reasons why a good mag collector always kept his copies inside special plastic sleeves. It was somethin' of maximum importance, apparently, the most pressing kind of serious business for nerdy nutjobs. He said something about an official rating system? Well-preserved first run copies of rare issues selling for more than a hundred times their original price? Stocks? Wooooow. He could hear himself saying, faking it. _That sounds Awesome._ Dirk held a shit-eating smile all the while and nodded at what he judged to be the appropriate stops, but couldn't for the life of him really pay attention to the subject at hand. His mind was busy with other matters.

Like the matter of ogling Jake. He held a real good boy-watching angle from his horizontal spot on the floor, head supported by his elbow. At the back of his mind he felt the formation of the words _‘Twink bout to pounce’_ although, he frankly couldn't recall why they were relevant. Jake wore a thin, white tank top and a pair of long basketball shorts. Whenever he got really into talking about his interests —with a glint in the green of his eye— Jake’s arms took on a personality of their own, flexing enthusiastically and wrinkling the worn material of his shirt which sometimes, if one was to be lucky, came really close to exposing a lascivious nipple. And boy, did he have arms. Dirk tried his hardest to not get lost following the patch of dark hair growing around his forearms, or how it proceeded to run down his broad chest in curls, most certainly confirming the existence of the happiest of trails not far beyond his navel. It was the color of slightly burnt almonds. His eyes had to remain at face level, however. Not lower, never any lo-

“-So, what about you?” Jake’s voice lassoed him far out in the ethereal plane and tugged hard, snapping his thoughts back into reality.

“Huh?” Dirk blinked.

Jake had the gall to laugh at his inability to process a three word question while high. Dirk failed to mind, taking the opportunity to carefully note how silliness heightened his features. A full-body chuckle was a rare but treasured sight, and he wore it well. Shit, what was the question again?

“Meh, forget it, I must be boring you with all my senseless blathering for damn sure.”

He was trying to brush it off. Dirk felt a surge of urgency rush through him, like a timed game prompt offering the choice to kick a puppy or give it an appraising head pat had suddenly popped up on his playable character menu and he had less than seven seconds to go.

“Uh,” he gestured haphazardly with his hollow muppet reflexes, attempting to reconnect with the barebone concept of Human Words —and in the process, ended up limply batting his candy bag away. The remaining gummies scattered all over the floor. He must’ve looked like a clown. “Batman.”

Jake grinned quizzically in response. “Haha... what?” 

“When I was a kid, I mean-” Dirk furrowed his brow, firmly deciding it was time to get his shit together. “Batman was cool as fuck. I played the, uh, Arkham games too.”

“Oh!”

“Yeah man, they were all sorts of sexy and tight.” He was _SUCH_ a genius wordsmith. He had it under control. “Awesome graphics. Impressive latex ass rendering capabilities.” 

“Sweet God, Dirk,” Jake snorted in a criminally boyish manner. “Is it always about the package with you?”

“ _Fuck yeah it is._ I know where my priorities lay, and his voice ain’t half bad either.” 

"I should have peddled you for a Gotham dude! No idea why it didn't occur to me before, you're... visibly taken with the brooding types." He shook his head, fumbling with a red container of Twizzlers only he ate out of. Those were the kind of junk food Dirk would've never bought on his own one year ago, but now acquiesced to, on Jake's insistent request. Also, Jake went out for groceries far more often than he did. A man was allowed his vices. "Well then, how about this: top ten hottest comic babes?"

"Wolverine."

Jake nodded, not missing a beat. "Movie wolvie eh?"

Dirk thought long and hard about topless Hugh Jackman with CGI kitty claws, spattered with grime and gore. Sure, he looked shabby in the first couple of flicks, but he could do wonders in a wifebeater and growly baritone. Plus, his tits stole all the audience’s attention when they started dancing, that's no contest. He was a solid seven point five stars out of ten. Jake mostly agreed with the shabby remarks and laughed at the rest, as he proceeded to guide Dirk into a minutious taste quiz intending to hash out the full ladder of stupid sexy rankings. 

_Deadpool?_ No. Too high maintenance. _Magneto?_ Maybe. He looks like a vicious shark, for sure a top. _Thor?_ Only when he got that roughed up haircut and metal eyepatch, but i like the way he delivers a line, it's cute. Black Panther's way too cute. Killmonger could hit it hard. Trying to fuck Hulk is asking for a swift death sentence. _Catwoman?_ No opinion bro, i'm not buying what she's selling. _Not even Catwoman?_ Jake gaped in naive surprise. _Not even Poison Ivy and her sexy sex siren pollen powers?_

He had the sneaking suspicion Jake was trying to test the boundaries of his faggotry. _And_ his tolerance threshold for tongue twisters.

"That siren shit's an obvious deathtrap, why would I want to get mindjacked for some pussy."

"Dunno. Maybe 'er into it!" Jake shrugged with his mouth full. 

"That's just nasty, dude, gross." 

He flicked a stray floor gummy onto Jake's general direction, but he wholeheartedly meant it as a joke. The truth was that it had felt really nice, all of it, the dumb questions and hypotheticals, like staying up during sleepovers talking shit with a friend until it's six in the morning and neither of you have gotten a wink of sleep. The warm feeling in his stomach had grown into an almost-purr of pure contentment. "Your turn." Dirk nudged his nose forward, face lodged atop his arms. He was only vaguely aware of the status of one of his legs as swaying stereotypically up in the air with dainty bobs.

Jake shrugged. "Eh, dunno to be frank."

"You don't _know?_ Forgive me if i don't buy the bullshit." What happened with Poison Ivy all of a sudden? "What's up with Vampyra up there?"

"Vampirella," He corrected with a slightly hazy chuckle. "She’s, well… different? She's mighty iconic. Everybody knows that!" 

Dirk did not know or agreed with 'that' in the slightest. He found it curious though, peering sideways at the multitude of Jake's questionable posters and framed comic covers. From the opposite side of the room, a taxidermied squirrel's eyes seemed to glint predatorily in his direction, staring back through a hollowed out toy monocle. _Vampirella_ was a white woman the color of ashy snow, hidden under smoky eyeshadow and bright red lipstick, often seen baring her bloody fangs to the viewer. Her long black hair cascaded down her shoulders, perfectly framing her femme fatale face. Kind and decent men would probably describe her outfit as a 'very unique red leotard', but in Dirk's opinion it barely qualified as underwear. It consisted of two red stripes slashing across her heavy breasts, straining to keep them in check, and a string down her legs to chastely tease the existence of her ladybits. _And_ a popped out collar to go with it, as nonsensical of a choice as it looked.

“I dunno about iconic, I don't even know what her powers are.” He slurred out clumsily. “Besides having a man-slaving rack.”

“Oh, that is indeed one of her powers.”

“Bingo.”

“Though of course she has plenty more to go around. The whole cocktail! Super-strength, invulnerability, immortality, super-speed, telepathy, night vision, outstanding proficiency with remarkably large firearms-”

“That’s a _super power?_ ”

“You betcha!” Jake winked at him. Dirk fervently hoped he did not blush in response.

“Well, I guess it could be. Doesn’t seem very super.”

“Yet you believe Batman does?”

Sneaky bastard.

“-I’m going to stop talking now before you get me to dig my own grave any further.”

“That’s so very noble of you and much appreciated, darling.” Dirk laughed the endearment off with a roll of his eyes, but his heart was doing somersaults. He’s never felt this relaxed, he could sleep content on the fucking floor for all his body cared. He was nearly entirely convinced the room they were in was the only real place in the whole universe, floating in a void of space and star matter. “But say, if you _could_ choose a superpower to have... which one you presume you’d be batty for?”

Dirk answered that with an extended _hmmmmmmmm._

“Kind of a hard one there.” The leg he swayed on the air went a little faster for a few beats. “There’s the amateur hour answers like flight and shit, right, even when admittedly flying sounds pretty goddamn sweet.”

“For sure.”

“Punching really hard has no use unless you’re fully into the idea of being a super-cop, telepathy’s like… no offense, nothing good can come out of knowing what everybody’s thinking all the time. Telekinesis sounds sick and sits at the most total positives for me, but again, I hardly see myself using it to fight wars.”

“Why yes, I hardly even see you _outside._ ” 

“See, if I had telekinesis right now, I'd put you through the window.” Jake pouted in a teasing display, exaggerating his trembling bottom lip and big doe eyes— with the audacity to mime wiping tears away! Until Dirk came up with a real answer, after some careful deliberation. “I suppose i’m left with shapeshifting as my top pick.” He shrugged his shoulders at a now honestly confused Jake.

“Huh, I didn’t expect that to be the final word on the matter!” Dirk winked back at him, smugly.

“Let’s just say i’ve got personal nefarious reasons for it, and leave it at that.”

“What? But that’s not fair at all! You put me through your friggin’ dream window and everything!”

“Do you really wanna know?”

“ _Yes!_ ”

Caught in a honeypot of vulnerability and light-hearted contentment, Dirk sighed in defeat. And without a further thought for his usually impenetrable defenses, contained facade, or diamond studded ego, he let it go. Who was there to listen but Jake, equally as wasted and about as dangerous as a common fruit fly?

“Truth to be told i’d just like to know what a dick feels like. For science.” Jake sputtered on a fistful of candy, and it only made Dirk’s confidence shoot a little higher. “You know they never figured out which kind of junk gets the best orgasms, and it’s not even like we're able to? You can’t simply-” He snapped his fingers for effect. “Switch like that, and really prove it without a shadow of a doubt. I’d be so down to make a heroic sacrifice for the greater good. Settle a historic debate. Then I would probably lavish on using Grindr as properly intended, without having to explain why I can't send dick pics for the nth sex freak in an hour who’s really just cruising for cock and couldn’t bother to read my bio to save his horny life. Granted, i’m definitely also a sex freak in this scenario because i’m able to live recklessly. It would rule.”

Jake laugh-sobbed between coughs, unable to interject.

“— Imagine being able to switch it on and off at will? Whatever fucking size i want? _Whatever goddamn color profile i feel like_? Cut? Uncut? Holy shit what a game changer. They can’t even do that with surgery, you know. That's the other thing. Hormones and procedures can only get you so far and they cost like both your fucking eyeballs. I don't have that kind of spare cash on me. I just want to piss standing up and be able to walk out when it's dark fearing only the vague possibility of being mugged. That's the other other thing, shapeshifting allows you to do a total makeover, including the anchor arms.”

"Which you'd use for sex freak purposes, I'm assuming?" Jake wheezed out with comedic difficulty.

"I would be a monster truck." Dirk stated, deadpan. "I mean it, I'm not kidding. I would like, punch through walls and shit. Suplex a train. I'd get mailed charges for causing earthquakes when I do squats. Disgusting."

Jake, seemingly picturing Dirk the size of a monster truck with exceeding faithfulness to detail, doubled over himself with laughter.

"Lord help us all." He said, when he finally recovered his breath. He wore a dopey smile that wouldn't leave his face.

"Lord help _you._ I'd be coming for him next, in a totally homoerotic blown-out battle so epic you would be able to witness from the ground."

Dirk watched as he shook his head in disbelief and wiped the corner of his eye, thinking hard to himself about something rather amusing.

"Who's all on your sex freak bucket list, anyways?"

Shit, that was a great question, he thought. Apparently loud enough that Jake could still hear it, because he snorted again while fumbling for candy. (How many of these could he possibly eat?)

"Uh, like… the characters we discussed or real people?" 

"Dunno, take your pick."

"Right. Okay, okay, hold on. Not counting God. Let's start with John Boyega, you can't go wrong there. The cute guy from early The Walking Dead with a baseball cap, what was he- oh yeah, Steven Yeun, Dev Patel, and… you know what, put Hugh Jackman back in there, he can do 'sexy'. The huge guy from Aquaman for sure. Now, who else? Keanu Reeves _probably?_ " Who else? He had a very easy answer for this. Dirk's thoughts coiled around Jake's heavy eyelashes and followed the sweaty nape of his neck, curving back into his jaw with the nervous bob of his Adam's apple — finally coming to a rest on the angular tips of his chin, shaded with sprouting stubble. He wasn't the best at the shaving process, so his cheek sported a tiny razor nick. Dirk kind of wanted to lick it. His teeth, too, they tugged almost erotically at the red meat of that Twizzler. Or maybe Dirk was just hideously hungry. Twizzlers were plastic crap, the shit sitting in the refuse heap of candy, but Jake's mouth had the power of making the unlawful look irresistible. Fuck, Jake's mouth. Now there's a thought. Jakelips. Wet and velveteen and soft and warm and… Dirk's thought processors ran face-first into his behavioral inhibitors like two monster trucks spinning in the world's bloodiest carnival game of bumper cars. He involuntarily _moaned_. "Bro, I'd even fuck you."

Jake abruptly stopped sucking on the whoring piece of Twizzler, which now hung limply from the side of his mouth. Just like Dirk's theoretical dick. His tongue suddenly weighed a bazillion tons, texture shifting between feeling like an inflated sponge one minute and a coarse cement blanket on the next. His thoughts flamed past beyond his mortal vessel with the lightspeed of falling stars, yet he couldn't move a single limb. He shouldn't have said that. Did he really say it out loud? Did Jake catch that? Jake's too busy spazzing out, he shouldn't have caught that. God please let him have not caught that. Holy shit, God? He believed in _God_ now? 

"Um," Jake said, smartly. He looked like his mind stumbled onto a 404 error page.

"That was. 'Twas a joke." Dirk involuntarily laughed, courtesy of his doped up body. Haa haa. Haa?

"Oh." His response came with a struggling delay. "That's what it was?"

The ball bounced back to his court, like a malignant object imbued with oppressive **därk enərgyys**. 

"No." His first instinct was to crumble under scrutiny, too lost to make up the tiniest lie. The admission fell from his lips as did spat out teeth in stress fueled nightmares, chipped and shattered with unease. Then his second instinct, the one built around reckless self-flagellation, kicked right in. "Sorry, that whole bit sucked really fucking bad."

"It didn't,"

"Don't… cover up for me, man." He grimaced, focusing on an imaginary point of the floor. Dirk squeezed the bridge of his nose, trying to pinch his body back into submission. Everything was television ghosts overlayed ad infinitum. Everything was slow-motion.

"I'm not!" Jake's disembodied voice felt like a sharp needle. 

He tried to sit up, his back to the bed, and the world spun as though he was lifting his head from a bucket of warm water. The cold hit him with a punitive slap.

The scene slowed to a halt. 

He heard the canister of red candy being clumsily placed aside with a muffled thud. Dirk's face burned, doused with embarrassment. Hot blood rushed up his temple yet the back of his neck was sparking with chilly gooseflesh. The mortification he felt! Jake's knees dragged across the floor. His balance was off and forceful, but steady. 

"Dirk?" His nudging tone meant he hoped Dirk was going to look at him. Dirk didn't trust himself enough to open his eyes.

He had been expecting this development all along, stubbornly pessimistic and worrisome ever since Jake signed his name on the lease. They were getting along too great, all those months, so it was only logical for there to be a catch. And the catch was that while Dirk was carefully planning his 10 act slowburn fantasy where his roommate passionately plowed him to sleep while nobody was looking, Jake only liked being around him because he wasn't a threat. Dirk wasn’t romantically viable. He was just convenient. I love… _being the bestest of buds with you, Dirk!_ Brain ghost Jake would tease, his perfectly cherubic face sneering at Dirk's pathetic plight. You're so friggin' manly and cool, Dirk, where have you been all my life, Dirk? It's just way too baaaaaad you're a guy ;p!

To make matters worse, he couldn't even muster the strength to mentally raise his defenses. His security system was on suspended mode, napping at the backseat. Pot sucks, he firmly concluded. Say no to drugs, kids, stay in school!

" Just… forget it. Sorry. My brain's all hells of fucked to... god i don't know? Do _The Talk_ right now? Is that where we’re going?"

"I think you're a quite lovely dude." Jake confessed in earnest. "Fetching even! On all…" Dirk's eyes shot open, the rest of his body frozen. He stared at his own scabby feet, not daring to turn Jake's side. Shit. That felt like the starter of a friendly rejection intending to gently, but firmly let him down. Jake was going for the flick-on-the-wrist approach. Except Dirk's hands were more like big and inconvenient claws stuck in a clenching position and he was a shitty orange crab flailing to walk front-ways. If Jake tried to do so much as amicably pat him, his spikes would prick his palms. "-All accounts. How would you do it?"

What.

" _What?_ "

Dirk was spatially aware of Jake awkwardly twisting the noisy material of his knee-length shorts. But his words came off like they had been relayed through a long and wavy underground tunnel.

"If you had a cock," He said, then seemed to preemptively quit with cold feet. A beat. A gulp. Then he didn't. "...How would you fuck me?"

_What the fuck did that mean?_ Dirk's eyebrows furrowed, his mouth hung open with a silent, unformed complaint.

"In the scenario you were describing, i mean,"

"I have a cock."

"Oh." He felt irritated. His haze of uncertainty dissipated to give way to a mental guillotine of ice cold upset. Screw this stupid fucking convo, and the stupid goddamn weed, and the crappy brownie bronco it rode on in. "I didn't mean to imply-"

"It was going in your mouth." Dirk bit back on a defensive and over-explanatory retort about his junk. "If you wanted to know." He just wanted the babbling to stop dead on its tracks. "I'd stuff your throat with it. Stick it so deep you'd be tasting it for a week."

Jake took a deep, deliberate breath for what seemed like self-encouragement.

"Would that make you feel good?"

"Well, yeah genius, fucking-A. That's what shagging's for."

Jake kept fidgeting by his side, and Dirk felt like he was about to snap, rip reality back into normalcy with a scream, away from this slog of time displacement. The clock hadn't moved an inch, yet it felt like he had been stuck in this conversation for the entirety of his sorry life. So much for vibing.

When Dirk next turned to stare at his roommate's face, suspecting he had fallen silent for far too long, it was only to catch him struggling to wrassle down an impromptu erection. Their eyes locked for a second that extended into generations, Dirk's hands digging into his thighs, Jake's arms battling with a defiant, ravaging hard-on. His face was dark with embarrassment.

"Don't look!"

Dirk snapped his chin up like an obedient dog. He focused on the ceiling, nervous energy buzzing through his veins. He felt like laughing and like biting his tongue to not crack up. The look on Jake's face wouldn't leave his mind. Painfully embarrassed, yeah, but undeniably turned on. At which point of the convo had that _sprung_ into being a _thing?_ Did he like that? Did he want it?

"So, you're horny." Dirk uttered lamely.

"It's just a dumb side effect! It'll go away in no time." Jake sounded as though he was trying to reassure himself before literally anybody else.

"It doesn't look like it's gonna." 

"It will though! Give it a few."

"If you're sure."

"Um, yeah, positively." 

"Maybe it's for the best I didn't get one of… those." Dirk didn't pilot his body anymore. His mouth did.

"They- they can be dreadfully inconvenient,"

"I can see that." He stared blankly ahead. This was ridiculous. 

"I- ahem. I must agree with the shape-shifting stuff though, you made a compelling argument my friend."

Jake wants to change the subject, a saving grace, Dirk thought, the image of the bulge between his legs permanently seared into his brain. For once in his life he felt like a proper pervert, sticking his nose where it obviously didn't belong. He was going to whip himself about this for days, he could feel it.

"How so?" He did, quite glaringly, have a dick.

"It seems freeing, in paper." He let out a sigh of relief directed at the topic shift. "It's not just about the thrill of punching bad guys, and i know that's mighty cool and all, but powers like these aren’t very useful in the broad scope of things if that… makes sense?"

"Sure. Turning into anybody is a great trick to carry in a practical arsenal. You can fool any sensor." Dirk kind of wanted to choke his speaking self before he had a chance to finish the sentence. What the ever loving shit was he talking about?

"I suppose!" Jake chuckled nervously. He still didn't dare look.

"I can't see you as the type who'd use it for committing fraud, though, no offense."

"None taken, amigo."

There was that heavily flustered silence again. Jake cleared his throat. Dirk's mind had partitioned itself a third time to slot some extra space for thinking about anonymous group pornography, ontop of keeping track with this conversation and chastising himself for being a massive idiot. "But,"

"Mm?"

"Sometimes i think that… well, fuck." Jake cussed under his breath. Dirk's eyes flicked sideways for a split second, in spite of himself. "I’m a mess up, I'm doing it right now for chrissakes. I haven't the foggiest idea where i'm going. At all. Or ever, really! I bet It would feel great to _not_ be me." Jake's eyes were squeezed shut. The back of his head tilted to meet the bedsheets, and he spoke as though he was reaching somewhere deep within his dreamself, tugging on a buried desire, but not enough that it'd risk getting him in trouble.

That's… heavy, Dirk thought. It sounds _heavy._

"Do you mean you'd rather not exist? Or that you'd like to be someone else?"

"Either, i guess," Jesus fuck. Dirk wasn't sure he really meant the implication in that sentence. He hoped not. "Or both."

"We're kind of trailing dangerous territory here, Jake."

"Don't I know it." He still wouldn't open his eyes. Dirk rested his head on the side of the mattress and copied his pose, attempting to escape the alluring sway of zoning out.

"Have you felt like this for a long time?"

"Yes and no? It didn't bug me much at first so I didn't pay it any mind growing up. I kept busy. And it worked just fine! But it never went away. It got a whole lot worse, every year." Jake's voice had become a whisper. "It's the small stuff that adds up. Like the way I talk or move or think and whatnot."

"And before you know it you've got a massive pile of shit to drag around."

"Ayup." He huffed. Dirk could see his eyebrows twitching out of nervousness. "Like my stupid almost marriage."

Oh. He hadn't expected that to be factored in, truth to be told. He knew the sordid details of the affair— as much as Jake had been willing to part with, side-stepping just short of precise personal information. Highschool sweethearts, rich parents, nice and comfortable house secured and bright future ahead after college. Until… Jake up and ran from the altar, because their relationship was falling down the drain and Miss-English-to-be thought the perfect solution to the conundrum was to poke enough holes in a condom for them to squeeze out a baby. Dirk supposed her parents definitely demanded a wedding and for him to take full responsibility. He just couldn't say no.

It made his stomach churn, even through the filter of his dreamy haze. 

"Like… your stupid almost marriage." He repeated finally. He didn't know what to say, it wasn't his area.

"Pretending it didn’t matter helped me a whole bunch. Drinking, too. Drinking was incredibly handy for just forgetting about it in the end. Though god willing I don’t imbibe anymore."

"It?" Dirk prodded gently. He still couldn't figure out what Jake was getting at. "Like, dating? You don't think it works for you?" 

Jake opened his eyes. Dirk averted his just as quickly.

"Promise me you won't laugh." 

"Right, promised." Dirk chuckled as if a shock button had been pressed for him to do so. "-Not counting that one, sorry. For real now."

Jake held onto his judgement for a beat, huffing another breath. Whatever it was he wanted to say, he needed a lot of buildup. Though it was highly probable he was just as blasted as Dirk felt, and simply didn’t show it in the same way.

"I didn't… want to be a _man._ It terrified the crap out of me. Still friggin' does, honestly. Imagine waking up as a husband with four kids and a big mustache and only his job to his name. And just, just signing up for it fresh out of school? Not doing anything else? Being stuck as such, forever and freaking ever? I'd rather die. I'd be dead already, long before they get my stuffed corpse in the big ol' box."

"Do you mean that…"

"Now don’t get it twisted— I don't want to be a girl, either. I've thought about it that way." He spared a glance for his poster covered wall. If he was looking at Vampirella, or Lara Croft, or any of the other ones- your guess is as good as Dirk's. "I mean, I do believe I'd know if that was the case. Girls are perfectly nice. It'd be easier to talk about if it was as clear cut as feeling stranded from sequestered womanhood."

"Right. Okay. I'm listening."

"It’s just, always felt like it might be too late for me to try to become anything else. That i'd be trying too hard or, heaven forbid, faking it again? Like, nothing will ever be good enough because I'm messed up to begin with? I'd just pretend to fit into a different troupe until I realize, oh no, it's just me again. I've just popped out of the package fundamentally defective and that's on that. What's it even matter if whatever I feel like is neither here nor there? If you can't even freaking… see it. And i already look so much like... let's be frank, here. I'm huge, hairy and imposing. You know what i look like, i can't magic it away." His hands did most of the talking, again, but this time nowhere near as elated. They reached for one another for effect and support, which left Jake picking at his own fingers whenever he wound down. "All i can be sure of is that what I was before never felt _right._ It was such a tight fit. It was asphyxiating." He took the longest breath to date, steering himself out of the spiralling spiel. "I just knew I was wrong. Yes, I've been with plenty of lovely girls! And the times we had weren't all that dreadful. But it… you know how everybody swears it's supposed to feel like this magical affair?"

"Yeah, sure." Jake's shoulder brushed his in passing and sparks ran in waves throughout his body.

"Well," He rubbed his knuckles. "It never... worked for me. It only felt like an unavoidable obligation, sometimes. Moving through the motions and working up with expectations and picking pastel decorative plates for the newlyweds’ sweet abode. Being the swashbuckling dearheart they wanted me to be. Helping my father-in-law build a dresser and have he clap me on the back and call me a strong and proper man, like he's awarding a racehorse for sticking to the bit. Feeling myself shrivel up inside because I want them to think the best of me but all i feel like is shit. It was exhaustive, not fun!" His right arm held onto his left elbow for self-assurance, as he curled in on himself. "Nowhere near as fun as being with you I suppose."

Dirk didn’t know how to respond. He wasn't sure he 'got' all of it. Jake himself didn't seem as though he _got_ all of it, even as he spiralled in distress. So he did the next best thing he could do.

“Whoa, careful man, when you speak like that it almost sounds like you're putting the moves on me.”

He grinned a stilted grin, to no reply.

"I think you're lovely, Dirk." Jake sheepishly repeated, looking directly at him this time. "I really do."

Oh, that…?

_Oh._

And it was at that moment, directionless and as dumb as a pile of bricks, that he realized the words weren't ever meant to be taken as a rejection. He had been so fucking stupid. So tremendously mistaken. He had to fix it, somehow. And quickly.

Dirk bridged the minuscule gap keeping their heads apart with a sampling kiss. 

Jake unspooled himself to seek steadying on his shoulders, placing his hand on Dirk's cheek and pulling him closer before he had a chance to pull back. He could have dreamt it, the adrenaline rush that accompanied it and the warmth that rose from his skin where Jake placed his fingertips. He thought he did dream it even as it happened. It was a short, sweet, and nearly static kiss, broken only through both sides choosing to back away out of the possibility of an adverse reaction.

"Did that feel, uh, appropriately un-wrong to you?" Dirk breathed out once he was able to.

"A bit." Jake had the lost starstruck look of someone who's just found a hundred dollar bill swept under their grandma's dirty carpet. "I'd wager it needs more data to be conclusive."

"Right. I can…"

"Make that heroic sacrifice in the name of science?"

Dirk gaped in astonishment.

"I'd love that. Yeah."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." His eyes ventured down Jake's pants, then back up. He was pretty sure he could see the world tinted in bright pink. "I'm going to grab your dick right now, if you don't mind."

" _Please._ "

Dirk lunged forward to straddle him as they fumbled through another kiss, interrupted only briefly by Jake's hand wrangling his shades out of the goddamn way. Erection-wise, he had receded a bit, which was fine, since Dirk could feel it steadily engorging under his grip. He had fantasized about jacking this motherfucker off for months, he was going to take what he could get. One of Jake's hands supported his hip with an appreciative hold as they made out, while the other timidly tried to not interrupt his ministrations. Dirk suspected he just had _no idea_ where else he could put it. Endearing on paper, but come the fuck on.

He grabbed Jake’s free hand and stuck it under his shirt to the sound of a soft _‘Oh, right’_ coming from its owner, who still had the audacity to splay his fingers just short of his chest. Dirk reasserted himself as the man currently sitting on his dick, eliciting a squirm. “Look, if you don’t grope me, I'm just going to assume it’s not working,” He began by way of warning, but was quickly interrupted by Jake’s hand stretching his vest up, rubbing the full breadth of his rough palm over a tit. “That’s better.” He conceded with a moan, as Jake switched his main oral approach into kissing bites to the curve of his neck. His other hand opted for using its leverage to further grind Dirk’s crotch down on his dick. _“Way better.”_

It was about that point, or more or less around it, that the rest of the edible really started to kick in. The motion, touch, ache and warmth muddled into one big wave of hypersensitivity — not the brain fog from before, but something that made him keenly aware of his body as a vessel, an instrument connecting him to another actively in use. Sure, he felt like banging before, but now he wanted to _fuck._

Dirk tugged on Jake's dick for attention like it was an arcade joystick. He snapped his head up obediently, though a line of spit still linked him to Dirk's collarbone. "You got a condom around here?"

"Yeah," Jake flashed a lopsided smile, patting his butt. "Climb on right up, and lose the shirts."

Dirk scrambled for the bedding, divesting himself of top and binder and pants just for good measure. (So what if he was too eager. Shut up.) While he sat twiddling his thumbs and squirming in his underwear, Jake dove under the bed to procure a box of… utilities. Even amidst his stupefied state, Dirk couldn't bring himself to not judge his placement choices. How old was this guy? Sixteen?

He wound up bumping his head on the wood frame on his way out, and nearly as if he had heard Dirk's protruding thoughts, Jake made a point to explain sheepishly, as he rubbed his head: "Haven't gotten around to getting a nightstand, you know how it is."

He makes it sound strangely endearing, Dirk thought, not without a healthy dose of disbelief. The bed shifted to accommodate his weight. Dirk took the initiative to pull Jake's shirt off while he had his hands full, lingering with his arms around his neck once he had successfully slipped the top out, feeling embarrassingly touch-starved. It felt good to hold and to be held, even more so than when he had a clear head. It felt 'right', as Jake would probably fumble to put it. He planted a kiss on his stubble-peppered chin, leaving a teasing lick at the site of his razor slip. He felt Jake shiver in response.

When he pulled back to give him enough space to work his magic, Dirk made no pretense of not wanting to touch his chest. He let his hands slide across the hair matted down to his skin, pressing against his stomach until he got down to the hipbones. Jake mumbled something indiscernible under his breath. Dirk risked a peek at his bare navel. Setup: meet payoff. He was elated to discover Jake did, in fact, have a trail of burnt almond hair running down his abdomen and far into his pants. Finally, intellectually sated, he let his back hit the mattress with a smug sigh. 

Jake watched him stretch with that glint of amusement back in his eye. His teeth pried the metallic package open. "Don't you sleep on me, I'd be desolate." 

" _Whaaaaaaaaaaat?_ " Dirk mocked, though he could feel how stupidly relaxed he was, and had his fears on the topic. "No way, no one just up and crashes before getting boned, that's such a waste" the bed was dangerously welcoming. Curse his devilishly soft bedsheets. 

Jake pulled the elastic of his pants down. Dirk's eyes shamelessly accompanied the movement of his fist as he gave himself a preparatory stroke, then slid the latex on top, resulting in a proud twitch from his buddy. "You'd be surprised!" He hooked his thumbs on Dirk's underwear and pulled them off in a single swift motion, holding his legs up. Dirk wished for somewhere to hide his face, fearing he was now the object of scrutiny. His good old friend, insecurity, arrived just in time to rear his ugly head during a decisive moment. If Jake's problem was with chicks, in general, there was a good chance he still wouldn't make the cut.

Wasn't a pretty thought, but it was an honest one.

"Is it okay if i-"

"Anything. My ass if you want it, and know how."

"Oh. All right then!"

He said, and Dirk felt his head brush the underside of his knees before he felt the wet tongue prying him apart. He buckled instinctively, bumping his navel on Jake's nose just as he tried to calmly lower Dirk's legs open. He wasn't proud of the sound that jolted out of him, as much as he boasted about his inherent sex freak qualities. Jake spared him a quick glance, perhaps to check if it had been borne of pain, then pushed his legs down on the mattress as he tried again.

Warm breath against his skin was on a whole other level of the 'being touched' scale. He felt like a pliant and soft little thing, writhing against the maw of a hunter, which was deeply unnerving to the rational part of his head but immensely pleasurable to all the depravity contained in the rest. It felt _divine._ He let himself squeeze his eyes shut to ride on the high of being tasted like an expensive treat, and bit his own palm as Jake finally figured out his preferred angle to better suck him off. He was pretty sure his breath was flowing in reverse, getting stuck in the middle of the cycle and being rapidly pushed out of his chest. His mind swam, cushioned by the softness of the pillows. He was keenly aware of the hard tips of Jake's digits digging into his thighs, and realized with dawning horror that if this went just a little longer he'd come devastatingly fast. That wouldn't do. Not at all.

Dirk clamped his thighs around Jake's head in the way that felt like an aggressive warning, not an invitation. Jake looked up with his eyes the size of plates. Dirk cussed, nearly without breath, at the same time Jake worriedly asked "It's not good?"

"It's," He took a scandalized gulp of air, feeling himself throb and twitch through the patterings of a near-climax. "Disturbingly fucking great, actually, jesus fuck." His whole body burned, but he felt the brunt of embarrassment on his cheeks. "But i was kind of hoping to be able to feel your dick when it comes in, so."

Jake's mouth laid in the shape of a perfect 'o'. He had a bit of a face journey throughout the statement proper, and looked sheepishly humbled by the end, though it could also have been due to the weed. "Right-o! Sorry 'bout that, chap." He licked the edge of his lips. "Been wanting to do it for a while." 

Hooking Dirk's leg on his shoulder and sidling closer, he reached for something behind his back and uncapped it. The distinctive package-popping sound gave it away. Dirk furrowed a brow. "You're sure we need that?"

"Just trust me on this one." Jake said, positioning himself between Dirk's legs as the cold lube dripped down his slit, making him shiver. "It's going to pay off in the long run."

(He was right about that, by the way.)


End file.
